We may as well say it out loud: Not only is fiscal and monetary policy running into limits in the advanced industrial (or OECD) countries, so that growth and jobs increasingly seem a question of luck; energy policy also is running into a brick wall. Everywhere in the rich countries of Europe, North America, and Asia, budgetary shortfalls, a reluctance to do anything that would further jeopardize growth, and the fallout from the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe have trumped energy and climate objectives.
OPEC, contrary to some expectations, now accounts for almost as large a fraction of world oil reserves as it did in 1973. Though it had little success in 2008–09 in slowing a precipitous drop in oil prices, this hardly matters in the larger scheme of things. With demand sure to keep growing sharply from the fastest-growing developing countries, and with the age of easy oil over, the basic trend will be for prices to remain high. For OPEC's biggest customers, "energy independence" is as distant a goal as it was a generation ago.
Though Europe has managed to cut its total oil consumption for several years in a row, its North Sea reserves are running low and its dependence on imports from Russia as well as the Middle East is growing. What is more, as Germany and Italy have adopted plans to limit or end reliance on nuclear energy, natural gas imports from Russia are sure to rise too—imports that are even more vulnerable than oil to interruption and manipulation. Less reliance on atomic power also means much more generation of electricity from coal, in both Germany and Japan, and with that, higher-than-hoped-for greenhouse gas emissions. Since the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, Germany and the United Kingdom have been the most aggressive and successful of the world's major world economies in reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. But that leadership now is threatened not only by greater dependence on fossil fuels but also by limits to how far and fast they can go with wind, the only real alternative to coal, gas, and nuclear for utility-scale power generation. ...and that more expensive offshore wind could run into a consumer backlash. ...the costs of British offshore wind could come to almost US $10 000 per citizen and be, on an installed megawatt basis, 10 to 12 times the cost of new natural gas generation.Read more from IEEE
OPEC, contrary to some expectations, now accounts for almost as large a fraction of world oil reserves as it did in 1973. Though it had little success in 2008–09 in slowing a precipitous drop in oil prices, this hardly matters in the larger scheme of things. With demand sure to keep growing sharply from the fastest-growing developing countries, and with the age of easy oil over, the basic trend will be for prices to remain high. For OPEC's biggest customers, "energy independence" is as distant a goal as it was a generation ago.
Though Europe has managed to cut its total oil consumption for several years in a row, its North Sea reserves are running low and its dependence on imports from Russia as well as the Middle East is growing. What is more, as Germany and Italy have adopted plans to limit or end reliance on nuclear energy, natural gas imports from Russia are sure to rise too—imports that are even more vulnerable than oil to interruption and manipulation. Less reliance on atomic power also means much more generation of electricity from coal, in both Germany and Japan, and with that, higher-than-hoped-for greenhouse gas emissions. Since the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, Germany and the United Kingdom have been the most aggressive and successful of the world's major world economies in reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. But that leadership now is threatened not only by greater dependence on fossil fuels but also by limits to how far and fast they can go with wind, the only real alternative to coal, gas, and nuclear for utility-scale power generation. ...and that more expensive offshore wind could run into a consumer backlash. ...the costs of British offshore wind could come to almost US $10 000 per citizen and be, on an installed megawatt basis, 10 to 12 times the cost of new natural gas generation.Read more from IEEE
